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A full day on the slopes at Sunshine Village take their toll on this Ontario writer's legs. (Angela Bisby photo / for the Toronto Star)

By Adam BisbyToronto Star

Thu., Feb. 10, 2011

BANFF, ALTA.—“Trapper” Jerry Kernen, the 93-year-old local legend who’s been skiing Sunshine Villagefor the past three decades, simply tips his alligator-tooth cowboy hat and heads downhill when he’s hailed near the bottom of the Banff resort’s revamped Strawberry chairlift.

Behind him, the soaring windows of the Sunshine Mountain Lodge’snew west wing reflect the brilliant remnants of the afternoon.

This moment of contrast encapsulates recent changes at Sunshine, as well as at Marmot Basin in Jasper (see accompanying article). Together, the two Rocky Mountain resorts have seen more than $50 million in new development in the last decade, all while complying with strict Parks Canada regulations that favour conservation over expansion.

Indeed, Sunshine’s limited on-hill accommodations prevent what spokesman Doug Firby calls “mountain sprawl.” Most of Canada’s large ski areas — Whistler, Big White, Mont Tremblant and the like — are located outside of protected areas and have been able to grow aggressively, adding condos, hotels, shopping plazas and other amenities.

Sunshine, however, offers just one large day lodge, the aforementioned 84-room boutique hotel, and a single saloon — Mad Trapper’s, named after Kernen — once skiers step off the 4.3-kilometre-long gondola ride that connects the parking area to the resort’s nine chairlifts and 3,000-plus acres of skiable terrain. Fact is, for overnight guests seeking rows of souvenir shops and non-stop nightlife, Sunshine won’t fit the bill.

It’s the “Champagne powder” and jaw-dropping national park scenery that keeps Kernen and millions of other skiers and snowboarders coming back, Firby says. “There’s nowhere in the world that has this snow, these views, and we don’t make you wait in lift lines. It’s not a sea of condos up here, so it never gets too crowded.”

From the top of Mount Standish, the smallest of Sunshine’s three peaks, the panorama seems little touched by the hands of man. To the west, beyond a sea of alpine meadows, looms 3,620-metre Mount Assiniboine, which straddles the Great Divide separating North America’s continental watersheds. To the east, the valley cradling the resort winds toward Goat’s Eye Mountain, which nearly doubled Sunshine’s size when it opened to skiers in 1995. Lookout Mountain soars into the clear northern sky, providing access to the legendary Delirium Dive extreme-skiing area and a 15-acre terrain park.

And below — the snow. It’s early December, just two weeks into the 2010-11 season, but the rolling terrain is well on its way to being blanketed by the more than nine metres that falls on Sunshine each year. It’s certainly enough to make visiting Ontarians jealous, especially when their gregarious mountain guide, Andrew Skakun, describes the conditions as “marginal.”

“Yeah, we’re pretty spoiled up here,” he says with a laugh when his guests cry foul.

Between runs, Firby points to the Strawberry Chair as an example of the strict environmental guidelines Sunshine has had to follow. Helicopters, he explains, were used to bring in the chairlift towers and other materials, while seeds from displaced alpine plants were sown around the site. These green policies extend beyond Sunshine’s boundaries: When the gondola was replaced in 2001, the old one wasn’t scrapped — it was “recycled” when it was sold to a resort in Esfahan, Iran.

Of course, visiting skiers may find it hard to focus on environmental integrity when they’re carving through Rocky Mountain soft-pack. This is equally true when drinking in the sunset from one of the Sunshine Mountain Lodge’s two restaurants — one casual, one fine-dining — or the sunrise from one of the west wing’s plush loft suites.

The lodge — formerly the venerable and kitschy Sunshine Inn — was overhauled in 2003 and drastically expanded last year. It, too, has had to follow a green scheme, with the new west wing’s glorious windows, for example, using solar energy to help cut power consumption by 20 per cent.

After a soak in the 35-person outdoor hot tub, guests can trade the lodge’s contemporary amenities — heated floors, whirlpool tubs and natural-gas fireplaces — for the rustic confines of Mad Trapper’s Saloon, a 15-second stroll away. There’s even a chance they’ll spot Jerry Kernen at the bar after a day on the slopes, refreshing himself with a Coors Light.

Mad Trapper’s burly bartender chuckles when asked about Kernen’s absence on a particular afternoon. “He’s probably ripping it up on Delirium,” he half-jokingly explains, referring to the precipitous alpine chute that Kernen skied every year, on his birthday, until age 90.

Looking up at the Lookout Mountain ridge where the extreme run starts, cloaked in late-afternoon shadow, the visiting Ontarians joke that they wouldn’t have skied the Dive when they were 19, let alone 90.

On the other hand, maybe that’s where three decades of skiing at Sunshine leads you. If only we were all so lucky.

Just the facts

ARRIVING: Sunshine Village is around two hours by car from Calgary International Airport. All visitors to Banff are required to purchase a Parks Canada pass (the adult rate is $9.80 a day).

Shuttles head to Sunshine from the town of Banff, as well as from Lake Louise, several times daily. An adult round-trip ticket costs $15. For info: www.skibanff.com.

SLEEPING: The Sunshine Mountain Lodge offers the only ski-in, ski-out accommodations in Banff National Park, as well as two restaurants at 2,200 metres. The main lodge offers a range of nicely updated rooms and suites for one to four guests, while the west wing offers newer, and more stylish, options for up to six people. Room rates include lift tickets, and start at $285 a night (based on double occupancy).

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